> Choosing 2 out of 10 professions is not interesting. Choosing 7 skills out of 100 is (ala UO.)
Sorry, forgot to add: choosing 2 out of 10 professions is not interesting. Choosing which one is capped at 100%, which 2nd one to cap at 90%, the third at 75%, the fourth at 50% is.
#1 No, getting access to new skills every 2 levels, and new 'phat' loot is what push people to level up. The mount is just a side issue. Having played D2 for 4 years, I've experienced time and time again first hand the "virtual dress up for boys" is the fantasy that keeps people playing.
#2 Which is why I argue current MMORPGs are not great games -- their first focus is not fun, but keeping them hooked. That's a terrible way to make a game. IF you make your game fun in the FIRST place, you don't have to worry about keeping people hooked! It's a backwards way of game design and business. Give players what they want, and they will come.
> 2 years, and that hasn't gotten old for me, so don't lay the "It gets boring after the nth time" line on me.
People have better things to then waiting around for their avatar to reach a destination. i.e. Flying from Iron Forge to Scarlet Monastery is a complete waste of your time for 10 mins when you've already been there numerous times. God help you if you PUG it, and you have to wait another 10 mins for everyone to get their act together. There is a reason other RPGs have "gates", "town portals", "runes", "teleport", to minimize the time the _player is doing nothing_.
If I have fly someplace, fine. Let me work on my crafting skills in the meantime. Let me play a mini-game. Let me pay more money to get there faster. ANYTHING. If a player is unable to interact with the game for 5 minutes, the designer has screwed up. Players are spending their time to be entertained, not be bored.
Like I said, the designers are clueless about dead time. DnD and Halo are great examples that have minimal (or almost none) dead time.
> This is a GREAT design choice. It ensures that everyone is having the same experience in the world, and limits the ability of douchebags to have an impact on other people's play time. I'd like WoW quite a bit less if the world weren't static, because I know what maturity level WoW players tend to have, and how it would affect my game experience.
Have you played RTS's at all? Dynamic worlds are always much more interesting then static worlds, virtual or not. Without change, things become stale, and boring.
There is no reason why the two can't be "zoned" to limit griefing (that's a much nicer term then calling someone douchebags.) Wow has just scratched the surface with a dynamic world -- look at the PvP zones / towers. It makes things more interesting.
Chess has these two elements indirectly. Your king is safe in the "static" part, your pawns are at the "frontlines." It is the _dynamics_ of the game, that make any game interesting.
> On the contrary, this is thought out,
The crafting design is sloppy.
The crafting skill system is linear, instead of being two dimensional. You can level your skill up making few items and once your skill is high enough, you can make a second item that is gray, without any fail, even though you've never made it in your life. That's not intuitive or logical.
Items are placed at arbitrary skill points, without any regard for items made before or after. Knowing how to make clothes from wool, silk, or cloth are all independent of each other, but in the game, they are artificially forced into some linear system, and that somehow a person is completely unable to make them because they don't understand the "basics". If I make copper bullets, I might have an idea how to make silver bullets.
Crafting forces an artificial reliance on NPCs. i.e. I'm an Expert Tailor, but apparently I can't make my own thread??
There is no reward for when you fail to make an item. People learn the most when they "fail". A good game offers a "win-win" situation, so that players are not penalized for their choices.
There is no logical reason why a person is limited to just 2 professions. How hard is it to skin an animal, pick wild flowers, and mine for ore. Apparently this is too much knowledge for my poor avatar's brain. Game balance issues should have logical reasons presented to players so they can understand the trade-offs. i.e. You can learn more skills, but they will be capped. Sid Meir said "Give the player interesting choices." Choosing 2 out of 10 professions is not interesting. Choosing 7 skills out of 100 is (ala UO.)
A large part of the problem, is that the UI is not user friendly. How do I "unlearn" recipes that I never use or need? How can I organize my favorite items that I make all the time? How do I teach others when I'm an expert in my craft?
> WoW is a great game, precisely for the reason you mentioned: it's accessible.
> dead time increases your wanting to level up to get the mount, it increases the value of mounts to players enormously: same thing for flying mounts, same thing for epic flying mounts. Think carrot (mount) and stick (time spent travelling)
No it doesn't. Dead Time is BORING. The first rule of game design "The game should be fun"
Go play some DnD (the pen & paper game) and learn about dead time.
> I got a pet little theory about MMORPG's and that is that most players play them, because there is nothing else. WoW was king not because of its excellence, but because of its one eye in the land of the mole people.
As a game programmer I would agree. Wow is NOT great, but it is "good enough", and certainly better then anything else that is available at the moment. Blizzard did nail "casual gaming" pretty good (Lev 1-20), so I have to give them credit for that.
-- Why does some Tailoring recipes require leather items??
* The designers don't have a clue stick about "dead time." Spending half of your time traveling back and forth across zones before you get your mount at 40 is B-O-R-I-N-G. Flying takes far too long.
* The ONLY way to level up is to kill things. For those that only interested in creating/crafting things, you're screwed.
* Quests are very limited. There 10 basic times, but only about 5 account for 95% of them: "Kill", "Random Drop", "Delivery", "Item", "Boss"
* Very limited world interaction. The world is static -- much like a ride through Disney Land. Your actions don't change the world.
* Crafting is not thought out. i.e. Smiths can make armor, but not repair their own??
I could go, but I'm saving it for my paper "A Critical Analysis of World of Warcraft: The Good, Bad, Ugly, and Stupid"
Wow is NOT a great game -- but is "good enough", and certainly is "better" then anything else out there. The UI mods alone show where the real innovation in MMORPGs are these days --> Making the game more accessible.
I was using this setup in the late 80's on the Apple ][ which grew out of the WordStar E/S/D/X diamond cursor control. Lode Runner and other games used IJKL; it was not that much of a shift to move it over to the the left side of the keyboard.
As a game dev, we stay AWAY from realism, - graphics wise because it is more important to have a unique style / look. When every game has the photorealistic look, it becomes much harder for your game to stand out. - gameplay wise because for the most part it is NOT fun.
IF we are going for realism, we end up with simulators. While those can be fun, the majority of people do not find them "fun".
Shooters tend to push the visual realism, because it makes sense in that context. Guitar Hero is a hell of a lot of fun, realistic render or not.
-- Why do people complain about realism in games, but not movies?
Ah, thats who wrote that! Dark City was very good, sort of like "The Truman Show" meets "The Matrix." I think one of the reasons it didn't do well was probably not enough "wow" factor and/or action for the general public to get into like "The Matrix." Similarly for the "The Thirteenth Floor" or "Gattacca." Too much of a thinking man's movie(s).
> The truth of the matter is that vinyl records are crap compared to CD's in every measurable way
No, Crappy Digital lacks _soul_, that is not captured on vinyl. All those "imperfections" you mention, give the music character. If you have ever studied CGI & animation, you would know that all the imperfections in the human body help define the character.
Crappy Digital is "good" enough for the masses, but having to listened to the same music on vinyl and CD on $10k horns, there is no contest. Vinyl blows it out of the water. I don't want "plastic" graphics, and I don't want "plastic" music.
For cheap ear-buds, crappy 128k-192k mp3s are "good enough" For cheap $2k speakers, crappy digital is "good enough" For cheap $10k horns, vinyl is "good enough"
> While there is no difinitive proof either way, all current evidence points to there being no afterlife.
You have never had an NDE or OBE have you? There is lots of evidence
The fact is, you are a Spiritual Being in a Physical Body having a Human Experience. Just because Science and Religion is mostly ignorant of time, consciousness, life, death, etc., doesn't mean you can't find your own proof. It is better to live your own truth, then the lies of someone else.
I'm the opposite: - gmail seems to be faster on a flaky internet connection -- half the time yahoo times out and doesn't load the bloody mail. Our work net connection stinks:-( - gmail custom tagging/labels, along with its search, is awesome - gmail has good threading - yahoo has better formatting/editing -- stuff like colors, and emotes - yahoo spell check is buggy -- doesn't always move the cursor to the word being checked
Maybe because copyright is an ARTIFICIAL law, that only existed since the 16th century. And Americans are waking up that there is no difference if they loan a friend their cd, checkout from the library, or share songs. Either way, someone heard the music, and the artist isn't getting paid.
> So which societies are advanced in your view, if not western ones?
At this time, there are no advanced human societies. There have been in the past, but they are long since forgotten, and better left unsaid. At best I would say every human society is a joke if they think they are advanced. More like pre-teen -- all they think about is themselves, and think the world revolves around them.
> and advocate some "noble primitives", you're just childishly switching labels.
If "noble primities" recognized the absurdity of owning land, then go ahead and childishly label them as such.
> stating that murder is wrong?
I'm not stating murder is wrong. Only that most people don't murder because of the consequences. There is a time and a place for everything.
> we need laws and lawyers. Do you agree with that?
Yes, I said they are a necessary evil.
> Who is right?
What is the definition of a paradox? Two truths, that appear to contradict one another.
This is a similiar situtation,, except that both Adam and Bob are "wrong." Adam has failed to learn honesty, and Bob has failed to learn forgiveness. The Golden Rule applies here -- treat other people how you want to be treated. Whatever the consequences, both will be placed in opposite roles in the future, so that they will be able to view the same situation from a different perspective.
> Advanced societies that are governed by the rule of law and that require complex rules will naturally require more lawyers.
What a load of nonsense. You're making 2 assumptions:
1) That advanced socities have complex law. 2) Lawyers are needed.
An "advanced" society will have people who have internalized the law -- they don't need others to interpret it for them. Do YOU need a law against killing? Of course not -- you know better. A civilization where people are blind to the consequences of their actions is not advanced. Advanced socities have LESS laws, because in reality there is only a few Laws: The Law of Karma, and the Law of Love, everything else springs from ignorance, greed, or power.
Western civilization is by no means advanced. When you still have people arguing over Intellectual Property Rights which are neither Property nor Rights, you have an IMMATURE society.
Lawyers are a necessary evil, because people don't know any better.
-- The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government
-- Tacit, 56-117 AD
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent up.
I would also add Virtual Cop, Cabal (arcade), Golden Axe, Magic Sword, and Knights of the Round (arcade).
Having played Wow since it the day it came out (for 4 years), and UO for 4 years, I like MMORPGS.
I think it is badly designed because of game design flaws.
> Choosing 2 out of 10 professions is not interesting. Choosing 7 skills out of 100 is (ala UO.)
Sorry, forgot to add: choosing 2 out of 10 professions is not interesting. Choosing which one is capped at 100%, which 2nd one to cap at 90%, the third at 75%, the fourth at 50% is.
#1 No, getting access to new skills every 2 levels, and new 'phat' loot is what push people to level up. The mount is just a side issue. Having played D2 for 4 years, I've experienced time and time again first hand the "virtual dress up for boys" is the fantasy that keeps people playing.
#2 Which is why I argue current MMORPGs are not great games -- their first focus is not fun, but keeping them hooked. That's a terrible way to make a game. IF you make your game fun in the FIRST place, you don't have to worry about keeping people hooked! It's a backwards way of game design and business. Give players what they want, and they will come.
> 2 years, and that hasn't gotten old for me, so don't lay the "It gets boring after the nth time" line on me.
People have better things to then waiting around for their avatar to reach a destination. i.e. Flying from Iron Forge to Scarlet Monastery is a complete waste of your time for 10 mins when you've already been there numerous times. God help you if you PUG it, and you have to wait another 10 mins for everyone to get their act together. There is a reason other RPGs have "gates", "town portals", "runes", "teleport", to minimize the time the _player is doing nothing_.
If I have fly someplace, fine. Let me work on my crafting skills in the meantime. Let me play a mini-game. Let me pay more money to get there faster. ANYTHING. If a player is unable to interact with the game for 5 minutes, the designer has screwed up. Players are spending their time to be entertained, not be bored.
Like I said, the designers are clueless about dead time. DnD and Halo are great examples that have minimal (or almost none) dead time.
> This is a GREAT design choice. It ensures that everyone is having the same experience in the world, and limits the ability of douchebags to have an impact on other people's play time. I'd like WoW quite a bit less if the world weren't static, because I know what maturity level WoW players tend to have, and how it would affect my game experience.
Have you played RTS's at all? Dynamic worlds are always much more interesting then static worlds, virtual or not. Without change, things become stale, and boring.
There is no reason why the two can't be "zoned" to limit griefing (that's a much nicer term then calling someone douchebags.) Wow has just scratched the surface with a dynamic world -- look at the PvP zones / towers. It makes things more interesting.
Chess has these two elements indirectly. Your king is safe in the "static" part, your pawns are at the "frontlines." It is the _dynamics_ of the game, that make any game interesting.
> On the contrary, this is thought out,
The crafting design is sloppy.
The crafting skill system is linear, instead of being two dimensional. You can level your skill up making few items and once your skill is high enough, you can make a second item that is gray, without any fail, even though you've never made it in your life. That's not intuitive or logical.
Items are placed at arbitrary skill points, without any regard for items made before or after. Knowing how to make clothes from wool, silk, or cloth are all independent of each other, but in the game, they are artificially forced into some linear system, and that somehow a person is completely unable to make them because they don't understand the "basics". If I make copper bullets, I might have an idea how to make silver bullets.
Crafting forces an artificial reliance on NPCs. i.e. I'm an Expert Tailor, but apparently I can't make my own thread??
There is no reward for when you fail to make an item. People learn the most when they "fail". A good game offers a "win-win" situation, so that players are not penalized for their choices.
There is no logical reason why a person is limited to just 2 professions. How hard is it to skin an animal, pick wild flowers, and mine for ore. Apparently this is too much knowledge for my poor avatar's brain. Game balance issues should have logical reasons presented to players so they can understand the trade-offs. i.e. You can learn more skills, but they will be capped. Sid Meir said "Give the player interesting choices." Choosing 2 out of 10 professions is not interesting. Choosing 7 skills out of 100 is (ala UO.)
A large part of the problem, is that the UI is not user friendly. How do I "unlearn" recipes that I never use or need? How can I organize my favorite items that I make all the time? How do I teach others when I'm an expert in my craft?
> WoW is a great game, precisely for the reason you mentioned: it's accessible.
Relatively ac
> dead time increases your wanting to level up to get the mount, it increases the value of mounts to players enormously: same thing for flying mounts, same thing for epic flying mounts. Think carrot (mount) and stick (time spent travelling)
No it doesn't. Dead Time is BORING. The first rule of game design "The game should be fun"
Go play some DnD (the pen & paper game) and learn about dead time.
> I got a pet little theory about MMORPG's and that is that most players play them, because there is nothing else. WoW was king not because of its excellence, but because of its one eye in the land of the mole people.
As a game programmer I would agree. Wow is NOT great, but it is "good enough", and certainly better then anything else that is available at the moment. Blizzard did nail "casual gaming" pretty good (Lev 1-20), so I have to give them credit for that.
--
Why does some Tailoring recipes require leather items??
> WoW is an excellent and well-designed game.
Oh please. I am a game programmer.
* The designers don't have a clue stick about "dead time." Spending half of your time traveling back and forth across zones before you get your mount at 40 is B-O-R-I-N-G. Flying takes far too long.
* The ONLY way to level up is to kill things. For those that only interested in creating/crafting things, you're screwed.
* Quests are very limited. There 10 basic times, but only about 5 account for 95% of them: "Kill", "Random Drop", "Delivery", "Item", "Boss"
* Very limited world interaction. The world is static -- much like a ride through Disney Land. Your actions don't change the world.
* Crafting is not thought out. i.e. Smiths can make armor, but not repair their own??
I could go, but I'm saving it for my paper "A Critical Analysis of World of Warcraft: The Good, Bad, Ugly, and Stupid"
Wow is NOT a great game -- but is "good enough", and certainly is "better" then anything else out there. The UI mods alone show where the real innovation in MMORPGs are these days --> Making the game more accessible.
Exactly. His friend should of said "That's none of your fucking business."
You may want to try watching the documentary The Corporation
I was using this setup in the late 80's on the Apple ][ which grew out of the WordStar E/S/D/X diamond cursor control. Lode Runner and other games used IJKL; it was not that much of a shift to move it over to the the left side of the keyboard.
> games can only get as realistic as real life.
And that is a good thing???
As a game dev, we stay AWAY from realism,
- graphics wise because it is more important to have a unique style / look. When every game has the photorealistic look, it becomes much harder for your game to stand out.
- gameplay wise because for the most part it is NOT fun.
IF we are going for realism, we end up with simulators. While those can be fun, the majority of people do not find them "fun".
Shooters tend to push the visual realism, because it makes sense in that context. Guitar Hero is a hell of a lot of fun, realistic render or not.
--
Why do people complain about realism in games, but not movies?
Ah, thats who wrote that! Dark City was very good, sort of like "The Truman Show" meets "The Matrix." I think one of the reasons it didn't do well was probably not enough "wow" factor and/or action for the general public to get into like "The Matrix." Similarly for the "The Thirteenth Floor" or "Gattacca." Too much of a thinking man's movie(s).
mod parent up as interesting -- some of these free apps look interesting
Ah Berkeley, :)
known for LSD and BSD.
Coincidence? You decide
> The truth of the matter is that vinyl records are crap compared to CD's in every measurable way
No, Crappy Digital lacks _soul_, that is not captured on vinyl. All those "imperfections" you mention, give the music character. If you have ever studied CGI & animation, you would know that all the imperfections in the human body help define the character.
Crappy Digital is "good" enough for the masses, but having to listened to the same music on vinyl and CD on $10k horns, there is no contest. Vinyl blows it out of the water. I don't want "plastic" graphics, and I don't want "plastic" music.
For cheap ear-buds, crappy 128k-192k mp3s are "good enough"
For cheap $2k speakers, crappy digital is "good enough"
For cheap $10k horns, vinyl is "good enough"
The music is only as good as the speakers.
> While there is no difinitive proof either way, all current evidence points to there being no afterlife.
You have never had an NDE or OBE have you? There is lots of evidence
The fact is, you are a Spiritual Being in a Physical Body having a Human Experience. Just because Science and Religion is mostly ignorant of time, consciousness, life, death, etc., doesn't mean you can't find your own proof. It is better to live your own truth, then the lies of someone else.
Was there a summary of WHY the books were banned in the first place?
Guess the pen is mightier then the sword -- since you can't kill an idea.
I'm the opposite: :-(
- gmail seems to be faster on a flaky internet connection -- half the time yahoo times out and doesn't load the bloody mail. Our work net connection stinks
- gmail custom tagging/labels, along with its search, is awesome
- gmail has good threading
- yahoo has better formatting/editing -- stuff like colors, and emotes
- yahoo spell check is buggy -- doesn't always move the cursor to the word being checked
> sharing copyrighted material is a crime,
They why is it legal in Canada?
Maybe because copyright is an ARTIFICIAL law, that only existed since the 16th century. And Americans are waking up that there is no difference if they loan a friend their cd, checkout from the library, or share songs. Either way, someone heard the music, and the artist isn't getting paid.
The best thing about America is Capitalism.
Unfortunately, the worst thing about America is Capitalism.
A blue swamp is still a swamp!
> There's actually a Powerpoint on Bungie's HDR lighting method floating around the internets somewhere,
You mean this?
Gamefest Unplugged (Europe) 2007: HDR The Bungie Way (35 Meg)
--
Thx for Render2Texture on the Wii, Nintendo! NOT.
> So which societies are advanced in your view, if not western ones?
At this time, there are no advanced human societies. There have been in the past, but they are long since forgotten, and better left unsaid. At best I would say every human society is a joke if they think they are advanced. More like pre-teen -- all they think about is themselves, and think the world revolves around them.
> and advocate some "noble primitives", you're just childishly switching labels.
If "noble primities" recognized the absurdity of owning land, then go ahead and childishly label them as such.
> stating that murder is wrong?
I'm not stating murder is wrong. Only that most people don't murder because of the consequences. There is a time and a place for everything.
> we need laws and lawyers. Do you agree with that?
Yes, I said they are a necessary evil.
> Who is right?
What is the definition of a paradox? Two truths, that appear to contradict one another.
This is a similiar situtation,, except that both Adam and Bob are "wrong." Adam has failed to learn honesty, and Bob has failed to learn forgiveness. The Golden Rule applies here -- treat other people how you want to be treated. Whatever the consequences, both will be placed in opposite roles in the future, so that they will be able to view the same situation from a different perspective.
> Advanced societies that are governed by the rule of law and that require complex rules will naturally require more lawyers.
What a load of nonsense. You're making 2 assumptions:
1) That advanced socities have complex law.
2) Lawyers are needed.
An "advanced" society will have people who have internalized the law -- they don't need others to interpret it for them. Do YOU need a law against killing? Of course not -- you know better. A civilization where people are blind to the consequences of their actions is not advanced. Advanced socities have LESS laws, because in reality there is only a few Laws: The Law of Karma, and the Law of Love, everything else springs from ignorance, greed, or power.
Western civilization is by no means advanced. When you still have people arguing over Intellectual Property Rights which are neither Property nor Rights, you have an IMMATURE society.
Lawyers are a necessary evil, because people don't know any better.
--
The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government
-- Tacit, 56-117 AD